Fragments of Our Broken Road
by BilliMonroe
Summary: "I set out on a narrow way many years ago, hoping I would find true love along the broken road..." A collection of six interrelated Bonnie/Dean one-shots inspired by the song "Bless the Broken Road" and set in the verse of A Million to One.


**A/N:** Hey all. This is a little treat for everyone who read and reviewed _A Milion Ways to Send Me to Hell _and _A Million to One. _Now you don't have to read those stories, but this story is set in that universe so if you plan to, then I advise you to head over there first before you read this one. With that being said, I hope that you all enjoy this first chapter (which was heavily inspired by Mumford and Son's "Liar"). **READ AND REVIEW**

**Disclaimer: **I own none of these characters, but this ship has me wishing that I did. Now, let's get on with it, shall we?

THE BITTEREST TANQUERAY

**(Fort Lewis, Washington: One year after** **killing Klaus)**

Bonnie liked polishing Dean's gun, and no, that's not a euphemism. She seriously liked polishing his gun. Even more specifically, she liked polishing the Colt, stroking its long barrel with warm wax until it gleamed hotly in her hands. And if it sounds dirty to you, just imagine what it must have been like for him, sitting at her desk chair, trying to keep his focus on the knife that he was sharpening and not the green-eyed girl who sat cross-legged on her bed and mischievously rubbed the gun's shaft as if she couldn't tell how close its owner was to throwing the weapons aside and taking her over his knee. And for anyone who's wondering, yes. _That_ most certainly _was _a euphemism.

When they'd first decided upon trying to make their relationship work, neither really believed that the other was capable of such a thing. After all, Bonnie did better at her craft when she channeled it into anger and pain.

She'd moved far away from Mystic Falls, far from the only home she'd ever known. And spent her nights wrapped in Dean's T-shirts so that she wouldn't feel so alone. Coming undone to the sound of his voice whispering seductively over the phone, just barely able to contain herself until the next time that he came home.

As for Dean, he was never really good with relationships. Now, he'd rather die than hurt Bonnie, but he meant what he'd said to her: his life was bad, and sometimes the things that made it that way followed him. Even at the present moment, he had a banshee on his ass, and if she caused Bonnie's death so that she could draw him out, he'd kill the bitch in cold blood. Screw waiting for answers! Screw Sam! Screw it all! That's why all he could offer was clandestine motel phone sex as a makeshift preview of what she could expect when he stopped through town and darkened her doorstep, looking for the lay and good conversation that she provided without regret.

Make no mistake about it though. What they had was the real thing. She wasn't just some girl that he'd met in a bar eight years ago and found convenient to keep around. You could tell by the way he stopped at her face after giving her the once-over, and not some other set of assets, that just being near her caused him a type of euphoria that made his stomach hurt with worry over the many threats that wanted nothing more than to take that feeling—and her—away from him. He had it so bad, he often thought of hanging up his arsenal on her coat rack and retiring them for good. Not that she wanted his weapons. She enjoyed cleaning their hollow barrels and making them shine, but it was his heart that she was after, that he was still having trouble handing her completely on account of how low the life expectancy of his job was and the amount of pain his death would cause her. But nevertheless, what they had was real, and he'd be damned if anyone questioned the validity of his feelings.

It was just that watching her there, sitting on the bed in nothing but her grey lace panties and a red button down shirt that he hadn't worn in ages—because ever since his dad died and all hell broke loose, it really brought out the red in his eyes—made him want to sink himself deep enough inside her to penetrate her soul. And well, if he set her usually graceful stride on a momentarily crooked path in the process then that was all right by him. It was all right in deed.

Still, he had promised Sam that he'd keep his senses alert enough to answer his call, and the tiny witch was well-past clouding them. The last straw was when she uncapped a bottle of gin, licked a loose droplet off the spout, and sucked thoroughly from the opening as if tonging bottles of English liquor were the most normal pastime in the world. He had to get them back on track.

"Not gonna work, Green Eyes," Dean barely looked up from the white oak ash that he was loading into each of the six silver bullets—"the only way to muzzle the screamin' she-bitch," Bobby had informed them of their banshee—but she noticed the strain that his fingers made to quell their shake.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," came Bonnie's falsely innocent reply as she tipped her head back and drank more deeply. Women who could hold their liquor had always been somewhat of a weakness for him, and she knew it. She was getting to him, something she also knew.

"Come on Green Eyes. Cut it out. I only have a short window to be here, and I need these weapons kill-ready before I leave," he said, and she was almost hurt. Here she was plotting ways to get him to stay with cheap Tanqueray and his shirts over lingerie, and all he could think of were the monsters that forever stood in their way. Then she heard it, the scratchy plea that held a trace of the tremor residing in his hands. It made blood race to places inside her that had been ignored for far too long.

"You know," she set the Colt on the night stand next to her bottle and walked over to him, "I'd be a lot more willing to let you prepare for this hunt if you'd let me come."

He glared. Uh-oh! She was loosing him. No sooner than the words had filled the space between them, was he caging them with a hasty "Nice try."

Before he could resume his task, she closed the space with her body, planting herself firmly into his lap, and whispering a slightly more salacious meaning of the phrase "Let me come." He groaned a little bit, though whether it was from her words or the heat of their bodies pressed so close she couldn't tell. And franking, giving a shit wasn't on her To-Do list. The sardonic blond crushing his mouth to hers, on the other hand, was.

Kissing him was like being offered ice cold water after spending a day in the desert: not quite a necessity yet, but immensely satisfying all the same. And she drank him down thirstily with fistfuls of his shirt tangled up in her hands until he caught them and wrapped them around his neck so that he could gain better leverage on the chair. He tasted of worry, whiskey, and black coffee, all strong in their own way and battling for dominance on a tongue that tried to swallow all of the lonely cries that lay in wait at the back of her throat. And she let him take it all, take all that loneliness that crippled her some nights and turn it into a pleasurable state of paralysis into which she wanted to drown.

As they came up for air, he could see her there, chest pert and heaving through the thin material of his button up, and dammit if his shirt had never looked so good. He knew that the wait was killing her, but the vision of her writhing in anticipation atop his lap combined with the throaty whimpers dripping hotly down her lips pushed him further over a precipice from which there was no rescue. _Oh screw it! _he thought after he lips latched onto his neck, _we're already knees deep in this shit. No sense in backing out now._

Their afternoon unraveled into a long chain of demands for her to lie back on the bed and slow down a bit, linked together by ear-splitting curses as he tattooed his lips in places that couldn't be seen by the naked eye. Like the curve of her sides and the dip between her thighs. The flames on his tongue licked at her skin, burning through the cold solitude that took up residence in her bones every time he went away. But that wasn't what singed her. What made her both anxious and hesitant to get him alone in this position—or any of the other double-jointed moves that they'd trademarked—was the way that he looked at her: all deep and penetrating with his sage eyes growing larger and brighter by the second. It was both too much and not enough at the same time, and she couldn't look away no matter how much the intensity chipped away at her insides. Sent flares through all her synapses. Curled her nerves into knots that warned her of the responsibilities involved in being the target of such a gaze. See, he didn't just look at anyone that way; she felt that she owed it him to him to live up to that image. But trying to get him to give her his heart came at a price that some, namely Damon and Elena, firmly believed he wasn't worth.

Just as the first waves of satisfied lust start to crash over them, his phone buzzes with a lead on their banshee down south, further delaying what she's been waiting for and he's been craving for. "You gotta be shitting me," he rasped into the tiny speaker. A pause followed by another groan, and then, "Fine. Give me ten."

Bonnie doesn't even have to ask, the goodbye is written all over his face. It nearly breaks her heart, but she forces herself to look at it anyway, to memorize the deep lines creasing his eyes, the firm scowl that sets into his otherwise swollen pout, and the ensemble of faded jeans underneath a grey tee, plaid over shirt, and leather jacket that he carries to her bathroom, and prays that she won't have to confirm those features to a well-trained medical examiner. He knows what she's doing, sizing him up in that way, and doesn't have the heart to tell her that the day he goes out for good, there probably won't be much of him left to identify, save for a pile of bloody clothing and a pair of badass, steel-toed boots.

It made her feel like the women living on the military base near her appartment complex, the ones who watched with fear and strength as their lovers walked straight into the clutches of war, making certain to end all their phone calls and visits with "See you soon," because "goodbye" just sounded too damn final. It sounded like you were seducing Fate, whom we all know can't resist temptation. It was a weary life that nearly made her rethink going back to Damon. After all, he'd often told her that love was an obstacle, yet he had never made her put that theory to the test. Not the way Dean did.

There are so many things that she has yet to tell him, all of which she just swallows back like the bitterest Tanqueray, because she knows he'd prefer it this way, as opposed to the giant guilt trip that her, "I just wanted to tell you that I hate it when you go" would provide. And who in the world could ask her to resist granting him this wish, even if it leaves her with nothing except his faded t-shirts to warm her bed?

After a quick shower and a kiss to the forehead, he picked up his keys and slid out the door in a way that felt too familiar, like he had done so in a not so distant past life where they knew of a million ways to make the other tick. And though he knew that she'd never get used to watching him walk away, he had to. But this time, he left his heart on her nightstand, hoping that it would keep her warm until the next time he came through.


End file.
